The 51st and 52nd states

National Post ^ | June 7, 2003 | Lawrence Solomon

[Lunatic Fringe]

I always love reading good fiction

[fieldmarshaldj]

I'll take Alberta, and they can stuff British Columbia. Vancouver makes Seattle look like Greenville, South Carolina.

[Centurion2000]

Make sure we DITCH vancouver as a free city though. Sasketwuan (sp?) may want to get in on this as well.

[SoftballMominVA]

54-40 or fight!

Maybe President Polk was right?

[Centurion2000]

And grab the Yukon Territory as well.

[Incorrigible]

With Alberta as America's 51st state, the U.S. would secure 300 billion barrels of recoverable oil reserves, more than exist in Saudi Arabia. U.S. oil imports would plummet and America's great dependence on foreign oil would vanish.

If this is true, why isn't Canada selling us this oil at today's market price.  Something tells me there's more to the story.

[fish hawk]

Actually there would still only be 50 states as we lose Kalifornia and Arizona back to Mexico.

[Drew68]

Interesting thesis.

[bert]

How about maintaining the same number and trading Alberta for say Washington or even better Massachuttes.

[Husker24]

Canada's most conservative province -- anti-Kyoto, anti-gun control, hostile to national health care, receptive to plebiscites and Bible-belt Christians, free of provincial sales tax

Why join the United States, they should form thier own country. Then if Hillary is ever elected, ill have a place to go. We would just end up holding them back. Do you honestly think that the Democrats would let us drill for oil there if they were a 51st state? It would just be one huge wildlife preserve with higher taxes.

[Arkinsaw]

the Supreme Court of Canada has already endorsed a province's departure if its citizens speak clearly on the matter.

If they joined the US they would give up this option for themselves and for all of their descendants. Independence would be a better option for them. Interesting that the Canadians have a voluntary union. They should call theirs States and we should call ours provinces.

[Fiddlstix]

Bump

[xm177e2]

If this is true, why isn't Canada selling us this oil at today's market price. Something tells me there's more to the story.

We get about half of our oil from Canada, I think.

[Mister Magoo]

The reason is simply that it is not economically feasible to extract much of Alberta's oil reserves. Much of the oil is located in "oil sands." Oil Sands are naturally occurring mixtures of bitumen, water, sand and clay that are found in three areas of Alberta - Athabasca, Peace River and Cold Lake.

Bitumen is a thick, sticky form of crude oil. At room temperature, bitumen is like cold molasses. It must be heated or diluted before it will flow into a well or through a pipeline.

If the oil sands deposits are close to the surface, bitumen can be recovered from the oil sands by open-pit mining and hot-water processing methods. Deeper deposits require in-situ methods such as steam injection through vertical or horizontal wells.

As new technologies are developed, up to 315 billion barrels are ultimately recoverable, compared with Saudi Arabia’s 262 billion barrels of proven reserves, U.S. reserves of 22 billion barrels and Mexico’s 28 billion barrels

[Husker24]

Ohh sure, a state can leave our Union, you just have to have somthing like a 3/4 majority of the state legislator and 3/4 of the Senate and 4/5 majority of the house. So basically you are free to succede of no one else wants you.

[Cicero]

There are political problems with Vancouver, true. But the city is beautiful, and so is British Columbia as a whole. The weather along the coast is fairly moderate because of the ocean currents. Plus it would link the lower 48 with Alaska.

Sounds like a deal to me.

[stands2reason]

If this is true, why isn't Canada selling us this oil at today's market price.

What makes you think they aren't? Still, the cost to process it is rather high I believe (removing the sand), but IIRC, Canada still is our no. 2 oil producer.

[SAJ]

Agreed, Saskatchewan and likely Manitoba also.

Not B.C. -- never, for any reason.

[Consort]

United North America.